In view of the ever increasing societal concerns of energy conservation, the transportation industry, particularly the automotive industry, has continually made attempts to reduce and/or minimize the size and mass of vehicle components, while maintaining or increasing the structural integrity. In these attempts, the industry has looked towards alternative designs and materials for meeting these goals.
In one particular aspect, the transportation industry has looked towards the use of alternative materials to replace or supplement certain components of a vehicle typically made of more dense materials, such as metal. For example, certain structural members used for supporting components of the vehicle, which traditionally may comprise of one or more metal components, may instead comprise a hybrid component having a reinforced plastic component and a corresponding adjoined metal component. However, this has led to difficulty in manufacturing, particularly plastic components, as they must be adapted to mate with corresponding metal components and provide the required structural characteristics.
One such manufacturing difficulty arises in over-molding plastic components. As one skilled in the art would appreciate, over-molding can be much more costly than the conventional injection-molding process, since it requires extra components and additional molding steps. Another difficulty arises since moldings are open structures, where a substantial portion of the over-molded hybrid component is generally open along an axis, thereby resulting in a member having diminished strength and stiffness.
Accordingly, there is a need for a method of forming lightweight structural members with more efficient techniques which deliver maximum performance for reduced costs and weight. Furthermore, there is a need for vehicular structural members that are lighter than traditional structural members without substantially increasing cost of producing the same.